8/10/11

I decided to wake up early today at 6:15 and go for a run down by the beach since it is so close. It was a beautiful start to my day, as almost no one else was out! Surprisingly, no one else had the great idea to go running, exercising by the beach.Here is a picture of one of a couple beautiful mansions by the beach, with a great view.
We all brought our lunches today to training so we sat out back in the courtyard together to eat. We finished quickly so we decided to walk around the area and check out the local stores. Below is a picture of Dreampainters, a husband and wife artist (Awad) own the shop and sell all sorts of interesting paintings. As we were walking in the door I noticed a painting of a crocodile in a hammock holding a bottle of moonshine.
In another cute boutique I found these crosses. It looks like something my mom could easily make with the right materials. It is a simple barbed wire cross, but on top are glass beads strung onto curlie cue wire for decoration, and a pop of color.
After training, we all went out to dinner at this daiquiri bar (even though no one got a daiquiri hah). The burgers were fresh made and I got mine with a jalapeno cheddar bun that was quite delicious!

8/9/11

My mom sent me this picture of the beautiful job she did refinishing the kitchen table and chairs, looks great mom! I can't wait to come home and see it! Reminds me again that I am homesick.

Training today was fine. For day 2 we went over nervous system pathways and spinal anatomy. A lot of review for me. Not much to tell. I had made a jelly sandwich, but I went with the other trainees to a restaurant for lunch.

For dinner we went to a pizza place called Leo's and sat on the patio. A rooster was just roaming throughout the outdoor area....kind of odd.

8/8/11

Today was the first day of training, and we met our trainer Scott Davis at the Mary C. O'Keefe Center in Ocean Springs at 10 AM when it opened.

Our training today consisted primarily of talking about the career itself and what to expect. We followed that up with basic anatomy, direction of anatomy, and talking abou the basic way that the body and brain are organized. We went out to lunch across the street from the Center at Shady's and I got a BBQ pulled pork sandwich with fries.

After our training was finished for the day we wanted to go check out the beach, just a couple blocks down from the Center we are training in. The sun was setting and it looked beautiful!
We went back to the hotel to study for an hour or two before our hunger got the best of us. We went back to Government street where the Center is and where there are a lot of shops and restaurants to a restaurant called "The Grocery Store on Government." I got Muffaletta (which from what I gathered eating it, is a normal sandwich with green olives and olive dressing on it), and tried Indian Summer which is a beer brewed here in Mississippi.

8/7/11

I woke up today with the intention of going back to the church that I had gone to the previous week, but as I was driving there I saw a sign in the ground that said "The Journey, Service at 10:30" so I switched my route and decided to try somewhere new. The church was held in a local community college, and was less than a mile from where I saw the sign. They had lots of snacks and donuts at the entrance and in the worship area there were round tables, and also chairs facing forward. Some people sat at the tables instead of the chairs and I read in the "about us" that some people make art during the service (it was all over the room). One man was knitting. It was kinda weird. We watched a scene from Talladega Nights at the beginning of the service. The series was on the Lord's Prayer and we were just starting, talking about calling God "Father." It was interesting...I may or may not go back.

After church, the Whiteside's met me at my hotel to get a room key from me, because they are hoping to find someone to watch Mr. Richard's father for a night or so, so they can get some good sleep and time away. I hope they find the time. Also they were so kind to bring me a bag so I could pack my clothes for the trip to Mississippi!

I got to the airport, returned my rental car, and headed into the airport. I flew Southwest, and since I didn't have priority boarding I ended up in the very last row of the plane, but at least I got an aisle seat :) From Denver we flew into Chicago, IL where it was raining and storming! Almost everyone got off the plane so I was able to easily locate the other two trainees from Denver. We all got in a section close to the front together and I got to know them a little better.

Steve Ashley was a polysomnographic technologist for many years in a sleep lab owned by, Rick Flores, the CEO and founder of our company (PhysIOM). Steve has a newborn son who was just born 5 weeks ago, and wanted a job with more regular hours and that he could support his family better with. Max Marino did his degree in Biomedical Engineering and just finished his Master's at Colorado State University, he is 23 like me.

From Chicago, the plane headed down to New Orleans, Louisiana, the city that our instructor, Scott Davis (PhD in Neurophysiology) is from. Unfortunately after Hurricane Katrina he and his family (4 children, but all young) moved to Ocean Springs, Mississippi (right off the beach).

We arrived in New Orleans a little before 9 and met the other trainee from Atlanta, Georgia. Rebecca has a degree in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Tech, and graduated with her bachelor's last May and is also 23 :)

We drove into the city of New Orleans with our Enterprise Kia SUV to get dinner. Below is a picture of Harrah's Casino. Across the street we went to Gordon Biersch. I got a salmon caesar salad that was delicious.

Left: Max, Middle: Steve, Right: Rebecca
It took over 1.5 hours to get to the hotel because for some reason there was a huge backup on the highway (weird...on a Sunday night at like 10:30 at night). We finally made it to the hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi: Hampton Inn, 13921 Big Ridge Rd., Biloxi, MS 39532.

I got a room all to myself with two beds! :)

8/6/11

Sylvia called me after her work out class and told me she was on her way to my hotel to pick me up for the day. She arrived with Ned, a guy who lives in Houston (who her mom met at a work function, who was in town for work...Sylvia's mom told Ned about Sylvia so he would have someone to hang out with while in town, he is a year older than Sylvia). We headed downtown to the Tavern for a while, and Sylvia brought Puff along.

After the Tavern we headed up to Fort Collins to visit Sylvia's sister Chelsey who goes to Colorado State University. It is about a 1-2 hour drive from Denver, but we finally made it and got to meet Chelsey's 3 roommates too. Below is a picture of Chelsey's husky Shayla.
Chelsey was still at work (Petsmart) when we arrived and we brought Puff into Petsmart for her to groom him. When she got back to the house, little Puff had bows on his ears and his fur had been trimmed. Poor little Puff running around with bows!!!
We went to downtown Fort Collins and walked around and got to check out the city. Later that night we drove back to Denver and Sylvia dropped me back off at my hotel.

8/5/11

We did the scheduled surgery (that had been rescheduled from the previous day) at 8 am this morning, and I was out of the hospital at noon. I headed directly over to the Whiteside's where we had lunch (beef soup, sandwiches, and applesauce, MMM!) Following lunch I went into the backyard to enjoy the sun for a few minutes when I heard Lucky whimpering and scratching at the outdoor grill. I went over to see what she was fussing over and figured she must have cornered an animal or something. Sure enough, I opened up the grill and staring timidly back at me was a large squirrel. I closed the grill back up and called the Whiteside's out. Mrs. Ellie came out and lifted the lid with a broom handle. The squirrel bounded out so fast that Lucky barely even noticed him fly out! For the rest of the afternoon she kept pacing around and staring at the grill, even after we left it open for her to see the squirrel wasn't there!

The Whiteside's had rainbow and pineapple sherbert ice cream so we enjoyed that out in the summer heat of their backyard and got to try a few things out of the garden-some raspberries, wild strawberries, and cherry tomatoes. All the produce was delic!

As it got a little later, Mrs. Ellie and I ran to the redbox down the street outside of McDonald's to pick up a few movies for the night. We rented Lincoln Lawyer and I Am Number Four. Then we swung back by the house and I drove all four of us (Mr. Richard, Mrs. Ellie, and Mr. Richard's father Don) to their favorite Mexican Restaurant down the street. I got a shredded beef burrito with the green chili sauce which was delicious and very filling.

For dessert we got the sopapillas which are drenched in caramel sauce, whipped cream and maraschino cherries. I texted my mom these pictures from my brand new phone and she didn't even ask who it was!!! I guess she is just too intuitive!!!.....as she says, JEALOUS?? :) miss you mom.
We ran to the store for me to get contact solution and when we got back to the house we watched our two movies. By the time we finished it was nearly 2 AM! SO past my bedtime these days! The Whitesides blew up an air mattress for me and I went ahead and stayed the night :)

8/4/11

Hello all! Today I was scheduled for an anterior cervical decompression and fusion (ACDF) at 11 AM at the VA Hospital. I got there around then and Sylvia Haase and I looked into the OR room that we were scheduled to be in. The room was still in use by the surgeon and team who had booked it for the first surgery of the day so we knew we would be waiting for a while....for the surgeon to finish the surgery, close, and the clean up crew to get everything ready for the next surgery.

Sylvia and I headed into the staff lounge and hung out and talked for a bit over an hour. Finally we heard on the intercom the call for the clean up staff for our OR room. We started to set up about 20 minutes later when the staff was finished cleaning. Everything was running smoothly until the patient was put to sleep, and then the neurosurgeon resident noticed that the consent form had the wrong levels listed on it! It was determined that we could not carry on with surgery without waking the patient and getting consent for the proper levels, so we had to pack everything up and plan to come back tomorrow morning. The poor patient was woken up only to find that she had not undergone surgery, but that she would have to stay the night in the hospital and have the surgery first thing in the morning.

I feel so happy and blessed to have family and friends who love and care about me :) I've made a little wall with all my letters and cards on it (3 as of now to be exact!) One more to come...I got a letter from Jessica on Friday (8/5) that I haven't put up yet. So far I have a card from Aunt Sexy, Cara Shrontz, and Andrew Harrington.

I went to the Apple store and got a new phone cover to go with my brand new white iphone4! I LOOOVE IT! It is Kate Spade, the same style as Courtney Pustejovsky's, except hers is pink with white polka dots :)....oh and btw I have a new phone number so text my old one if you don't have it yet and I will give it to you!!!

Since I was already in Denver for the case, I met Danny downtown after his case. We walked around and checked stuff out while it was still daylight.

Around 8-8:30 PM the sun starts to set in Denver. We headed to 1-up, an old school arcade bar with old fashioned video games from Pacman to Donkey Kong, skeeball, and pinball. On the back patio they have "giant jenga" sets and we played a few games of that as well as the arcade games! It was a lot of fun, and a good way to de-stress.

8/3/11

This morning I got up at 4:30 to shower and get my stuff together for the long case today. The case was at Longmont which is about a 45 minute drive from my hotel without traffic. I had to be there to meet with Cory (tech) at 6:15 so I left around 5:15. The case was a long and complicated case. It was a cervical fusion from the front and back, which is very uncommon. Basically the surgeon fused the entire neck from almost the base of the skull down to the vertebra past the large vertebra you can feel on the back of your neck (the large one is C7, he fused to T1). Typically fusions of this sort are just done on the side closest to the disc space (which would be anterior-the front), but this case ensures absolutely no mobility. The patient already had a previous fusion from the posterior which had to be removed first, and screws needed to be inserted (took around 5 hours after an hour of setup). Then we flipped the patient (which involved us moving our MANY MANY leads from the pods that send the electrical conductance to the computer, tie them up against the patient's body, and then re plug in post flip, all while staying beneath a paper sheet that prevents me from touching the sterile field...AKA I am under a PAPER SHEET looking at the naked patient, on my hands and knees, bruising, and getting kicked by the nurses and the surgeon-who of course don't bother to apologize or acknowledge that they have just made a significant dent in my lower back, or tush, whatever the case may be, throw in there that they don't really care if they rip out your leads either....so when they get ripped out before you can get to them, you have to go get more and re-insert new ones, and retape). The surgeon then did a typical ACDF removing disc material and inserting cages. This took a few more hours. THEN we flipped the patient back to the posterior and reopened the wound (which was gushing blood by this point and dirtying my pods) to put rods on the screws that the surgeon had previously placed, which took another hour or so. This case was done by two surgeons at the same time (rather than the typical surgeon accompanied by PA) to speed up the process, yet the entire case still lagged to the 9 hour line, not even including the set up and take down, or the 2 hours of driving I did to get to and from the hospital today. One other note that I may or may not have mentioned--we are not allowed to EAT, DRINK, USE THE BATHROOM, or LEAVE the room during the entire surgery. That being said, I did not eat, drink, or pee between the hours of 6 AM and 5 PM today. See if you could live like that?? Trust me, I worry that I may not even last a year at this point. You don't NEED too much education to do this....you need endurance, and strength of mind. I'm exhausted and ready for bed. More work tomorrow.

8/2/11

I got up at 4 AM to tie needles and get ready for my 2 cases in Fort Collins. The hospital, Orthopedic Center-The Rockies is over 50 miles from my hotel, in Fort Collins so to be at the hospital at 6 AM I had to leave before 5AM. The first case was a lumbar, L4-S1. I pricked myself and had to go to a nearby general care facility to get blood drawn. I missed the second case since I had to get my blood drawn. We finished with everything about 2 PM and when I got home I slept until 9! For some reason I was so drained from the days events. When I woke up I watched some TV, ate spaghettios, and worked on updating my blog. Tomorrow will be another very early and long day....so good night!

8/1/11

Today I did a thoracic decompression with David Powner, a tech that I had not worked with up until this point. The case was at the VA scheduled to start around 11, but it started late, closer to noon. We finished around 5 PM or so, and I headed back to the hotel to watch some TV and take a short nap. I was able to watch Design Star, which was awesome, but I miss watching it with my mom!!! A little later I went to Rock Bottom with Danny and we got wings and quesadillas.

7/31/11

This morning I woke up at 6 AM and got ready, ate breakfast, and relaxed until church. I looked up a few churches, and decided on Christian Church of Broomfield, only a few minutes away on the other side of the highway. The contemporary service started at 10:30 AM. The message was on Jonah and the powerful reaction of the Ninevite people to God's warning. Jonah brought a simple message that quickly brought the King of Nineveh into sackcloth and prayer. The pastor stressed the importance of application.

Downtown Boulder for lunch & walking around:

A cool street performer doing a tight wire walk.

7/30/11

Today we did the Fourth of July trail that my boss had recommended to me for its beautiful waterfalls and wildflowers, as well as mountain views!

Later Saturday night we went to Rock Bottom for dinner and got beef nachos!

7/29/11

I went to the Veteran's Affairs Hospital (VA) in Denver early this morning, at 7 AM from Sylvia's apartment. The case was a decompression without a fusion so it wasn't as long as it would usually take. We finished at about 1 PM and I went back to Sylvia's to shower and get my stuff. I had to run to the Louisville office to pick up my new stim box since I had found out it didn't work when I tried to use it in a case with Sylvia Haase, another tech. The traffic was really bad so it took forever! After I picked up my stim box I drove back downtown to join Sylvia and her friend Michelle. Michelle is from Houston, and she just started working here in Denver as a flight attendant with Frontier Airlines.

7/28/11

I went back to St. Anthony's Central today for two cases. The first was scheduled to start at 8:30 in the morning, so Erica and I met at the hospital a bit before 8 AM. We signed in to Reptrax (which is a way for the hospitals to keep track of vendors, and contract workers who come into the hospital to work, and give them an evaluation for signing in and out of the system), and headed to the OR. The first case was a L4-S1 fusion, which ended up running a little late. For this case we monitored the vastus lateralis/medialis (quads), the tibialis anterior (front of the lower leg), biceps femoris (hamstrings), gastrocnemius (calf), and flexor digitorum brevis (bottom of the foot) for EMGs. The second case was a C3-7 posterior fusion. Usually for the cervical levels the fusion is done anteriorly, but this person had already had an anterior fusion, and needed a posterior one as well. We finished around 8 PM, and I drove over to Sylvia's apartment to spend the night!